


Pennyroyal Tea

by TheVeryLastValkyrie



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: F/F, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, You Are Not Filthy, You Are Not Spoiled
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 07:49:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7426345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVeryLastValkyrie/pseuds/TheVeryLastValkyrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Constance will survive this, but Milady may not. Rape and recovery-centric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pennyroyal Tea

**Author's Note:**

> For the one in six. We survive. We thrive.
> 
> Thanks to [Charis](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Charis) for your very gentle nudge in the direction of writing what I needed to write.

I find you, and I consider walking away. Leaving you there. On your hands and knees, with your face pressed to the stones of the street. You look too familiar to me. I can hear your wailing from here, the mucus-laced sobs of another taste in your mouth you can’t spit out. That means I’m a bad woman. _He_ would have it I was born a bad woman, I just hid it so well for so long.

Pull down your skirt, for the love of God. I don’t want to look at you.

“Get up.” You come unresisting when I put my hand under your elbow, haul you up. You stumble. Half-drowned kitten that you are, you would follow me anywhere now. I take you home, for want of anywhere better, cross my fingers against old husband and young, beautiful boy both.

“He – he –”

“I know.”

You’re no slattern, Constance Bonacieux. Your fires are neatly swept and well-laid. I can’t stop my hands shaking. You have no idea how lucky you are that I found you, not your curious neighbours, not your sweet d’Artagnan. To them, you’re spoiled. Filthy. You’re doubly lucky that I have the little purse of pennyroyal with me, a precaution against – what? _Him_ , I suppose. Sometimes he looks at me as if he’d like to have me in a dark alley with my skirt over my head. Sometimes, I wonder about letting him. It wouldn’t be about love, but not in the same way that this is not about love. I can’t give you anything for the pain of this lack of love, only something to stop it getting worse.

“This needs to steep.”

How steady you are. You put the kettle by, not in my hand; I crumble curling green leaves into cold water. It may not be palatable, not even once it’s boiled, but pennyroyal tea is a cure-all for what ails women. You’re steadier than I was, less than half an hour later, your cheeks and your thighs still drying to sticky trails to salt.

“Rape,” I say.

You say nothing.

“You are exactly,” I say. “Who you were before. This doesn’t change you.” But it makes you angry. It makes me angry, the plight of this girl I care nothing for, this girl who could have everything, this pretty girl with her misty blue eyes. “You aren’t at fault because he chose you. It doesn’t lessen you, you could’ve been anyone. He doesn’t have your face, your name. He won’t remember you. You’ll forget him.” And even knowing, the boy you sigh over would love you forever: your lodger, your keeper, my Ares with his head full of honourable lies. I will hate you forever, knowing as I do that you’ve been fucked by a stranger yards away from your own front door. Your life will go on. Your soul is clean, unblemished, capable of confession and absolution.

I burn the tips of my fingers removing the kettle from the fire, but they are long since burnt smooth.

My life did not go on.

My life does not go on.

“He won’t remember,” I say again. “And you’ll forget.” I pour the bitter green liquid for you, I watch you drink it. I watch you smooth your hair, become conscious of yourself again. You should clean yourself up down here, in front of this fire, where it’s safe. Upstairs is the domain of men, don’t you agree, or why else would women come to fear their tread on the stairs?

You swallow. You set the cup down. You reason with yourself, I can see you doing it. This man will be found, this man will be quietly and exquisitely murdered – by _him_ , if you’ll allow it. _He_ champions the innocent.

I don’t.

“How old were you?” You ask. It’s tinged with genuine curiosity, the proof I need that you’ll survive this. I don’t deny, I don’t sweep aside the pain you will feel. Life is pain. Rape is a worse pain, a pain at your core because the slates have been torn off your roof, your walls have been pulled down, and you eat and sleep and breathe out in the open, where everyone can see, the human embodiment of a raw wound. Nevertheless, you’ll survive this. The next hands which touch you will be gentle, but they won’t be mine.

“Drink all of that,” I tell you. “Even the dregs. Mention this to anyone, and you’ll be dead before the words are out of your mouth.”

_You are exactly who you were before._

I told myself, I told the bruises on my arms, I told the bruises on my legs.

_This doesn’t change you._

I told myself, I told Anne, the thief, I told Anne, her own mistress.

_You aren’t at fault because he chose you._

Everyone chooses me, even d’Artagnan would’ve chosen me.

_It doesn’t lessen you, you could’ve been anyone._

He only chose me because everyone chooses me, even the comte with his Catherine chose me.

_He doesn’t have your face, your name._

Not my face, not my name, Anne de Breuil is not Milady de Winter, Milady de Winter is not for the taking.

_He won’t remember you._

I am not who I was, and never will be to him again.

_You’ll forget him._

I am not who I was, and never will be to anyone again.

I walk through a Paris night which has gone silent, not close enough to dawn for hawking. I’m what they’re all afraid of tonight. I am the sharp in the dark that’ll stick them and make them bleed. I should refill the paper purse of pennyroyal, but I won’t. I don’t want to dream of _him_. I want hot water and a reason to be alive. I want someone to kill. I want to make someone hurt, to cleanse myself of what I did for you in the way of healing.

My life goes on.

(My life does not go on).


End file.
